Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 February 1942 — Page 18

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The Indianapolis Times

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager

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Give Light and the People Will Fina Thew Uwn Wap THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1942 LINCOLN SAID IT

“WE shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of earth.” (From mesage to Congress Dec. 1, 1862.)

AFTER SINGAPORE

HE cost of Singapore's collapse is so great it cannot be counted now. Immediate results are obvious. But nobody can yet measure its effect on the attitude of all the brown and yellow races of the Orient toward white civilization in general and the British Empire in particular. Today Chiang Kai-shek of China, who is also Allied generalissimo on the Indo-China and Thailand fronts and whose troops are defending British Burma, is in India trying to negotiate Indian independence. His purpose is to rally India’s one-third of a billion people with China's half billion in the defense of Asia. That is a first sample of reaction in the Orient. The immediate effect on Australia has been known for some time. The prime minister has said that his country can no longer look first to England for support, but must now look to America. Australians have been the bitterest critics of the London policy of giving England and the Middle East defense priority over Singapore. Australian newspapers have predicted that the fall of Singapore would mean the fall of Churchill. In London most observers doubt that Churchill will go, since no other leader approaches his popularity. But the long-delayed cabinet shakeup is considered much nearer. = = = ® = » RITISH public reaction to Singapore is particularly bitter because officials promised it would hold; and because it foliows Hongkong, Penang, Moulmein and Libya. In the United States the first reaction is that this further isolates MacArthur. While Singapore held, there was a fair chance of a turn in the tide, permitting relief of Bataan. It is not yet clear how the radically changed military situation will affect Roosevelt policy and strategy. That will be revealed only with further disposition of forces. One thing which is clear—too clear—is the immediate military result on the southwest Pacific. The Allies are losing their best base for defense and future offense, which means a much longer war. The enemy's way is now clear | to neighboring Sumatra, which—together with new Jap bases on Borneo, Celebes, Amboina, New Guinea and the Solomons—gravely threatens-the last Dutch strongholds of Java, and Australia beyond. Even more costly may be the effect on China and India if enemy forces freed by Singapore are sent north to join those which already are advancing to cut the Burma Road,

China’s lifeline. In this encircling gloom, Americans can only work the harder, keep the faith, and trust our President-Commander-

in-Chief to act.

MUCH IN LITTLE |

EORGE ADE is an old man, having passed his 76th | birthday. His reputation as the ‘Hoosier humorist” | depends on a great volume of writing, but chiefly the “Fables in Slang,” which already sound a bit dated to a | generation which has passed them by. | But neither the generation nor the times have passed | by Ade himself. He says “the old bean is working; I can | read all I want, and get around as much as I like.” | Evidence that this is true comes from a sentence in his | birthday interview in which he came about as close to telling what the war is all about in one sentence as some others have done in encyclopedic books. Said Ade: “Decent people can’t lie down and let those roughnecks walk on them.”

THAT BRIDGE OF SHIPS

HE President's appointment of a new war shipping administration, the Normandie fire in New York, and the 15th U-boat attack off our Atlantic coast within 25 days, spotlight again the Allies’ biggest problem. That is the “bridge of ships.” When that phrase was coined, it meant the North Atlantic supply line. Now it means many bridges across all the seven seas. Even the big bombers, which can span the oceans when there are adequate bases, cannot operate without bombs, spare parts, and other accessories. And they cannot survive long in battle without protection of fighter planes. The bombs, parts, and pursuit planes must go by slow ship. Those merchant ships, in turn, must be convoyed by naval vessels and planes. The British public recently demanded that Churchill explain why, with increased British tank and plane production, the Far East was unprepared. “The limiting factor has not been troops and equipment, but transport,” he replied. Transport is the limiting factor not only in Far Eastern defense but also in supplies to Russia, which have fallen far below schedule. Transport is the limiting factor in LatinAmerican co-operation. England cannot survive without an annual minimum of 35,000,000 tons of goods from overseas. The United States must bring in 20,000,000 tons of raw materials a year for war production. To offset Allied ship losses and meet increased transport demands, the President asks for 8,000,000 tons of construction this year, compared with 1,100,000 in 1941. Fortunately, our shipbuilding performance is one of the brightest spots in the war production picture. If Admiral Land as head of the new WSA can do as good a job in utilizing existing shipping as he has done in building, and if the Navy repeats its earlier success in con-

seen.

trolling enemy U-boats, the difficult transport problem can

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

CHICAGO, Feb. 12—For all the gentle sweetness of my na‘ture and my prose I have been accused of rudeness to Mrs. Roosevelt when I only said she was impudent and presumptuous, and that her withdrawal from public life at this time would be a fine public service. That is just an opinion, and there may be other opinions on the subject, but I maintain that it is expressed in chaste and gentlemanly language and with no more vigor than most of us are used to in our discussion of controversial subjects. This lady is a meddler in many matters which are very improper business for the wife of the President of the United States, a status which is constantly invoked for her lest her activities be objectively discussed as those of an ordinary citizen. Long ago, Mrs. Roosevelt meddled in the Newspaper Guild. Absolutely ineligible even on the pretext of her public diary, which is not her principal occupation, Mrs. Roosevelt nevertheless accepted membership to which she was not entitled and immediately became the political foe of all those American newspapermen and women who knew the character of some leaders of the Guild, detested and resisted their dirty work and bravely suffered its heartless persecutions. She was granted membership because she was the President's wife and for no other reason.

An Old Story to Dies

Legally, Mrs. Roosevelt, even as the wife of the President, has ng more authority than any other citizen of the republic. She is on a common footing with Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. George Spelvin, but we always treat our Madame President with a special respect because the office of her husband, which she partakes of, is the highest temporal authority in cur country. But when our First Lady commercializes that respect for profit and in competition with the rest of the people, by her association with persons who associate with enemies of the American system, an-

tagonizes the people, it is she, net her critics, who

fails in respect for the office.

Mrs. Roosevelt's quiet salting around of her per- | sonal friends in the Government employ is no new |

thing. The Dies Committee has known of this for a long time and has muttered about it, but the Dies Committee lives under a political sword and has had to speak softly lest Mrs. Roosevelt exert her influence to starve it of money with which to continue its work.

Churchill Would Remember

MRS. ROOSEVELT has absolutely no right to appoint anyone to any public position but now it comes out that she has named one actor, one eurythmicist or dancer, and one secretary from her private payroll to paid jobs in the Office of Civilian Defense, and one professional youth-mugg to an unpaid position in the same important department. The youth, incidentally, formerly was a fair-haired boy of the Communist front and now, at the age of 32, is held up to the American people, by Mrs. Roosevelt, as a person fit for leadership of American youth. One day in London, during the last war, one of the tabloids came out with ga shocking scandal exposing the fact that “petticoat” government had been established in Whitehall and specifically in the war office, whereby certain favorites of an influ-

| ential lady were planted in safe and cushy jobs in

Blighty. Winston Churchill would remember it well for the lady was a relative of his. The British reacted calmly, the lady's ears were slapped down and Britain got into the war. Still scrupulously avoiding impoliteness, I insist that Mrs. Roosevelt's activities have been not helpful but, on the whole, very harmful, and that, for all her pleadings against discrimination for creed and

| color, she has herself actively encouraged cruel dis-

crimination against Americans.

U. S. Aviation

By Maj. Al Williams

THE RELUCTANCE of many people to accept aviation at anything like its face value, even after it has upset this entire war, is more easily understood when we realize that for thousands of years only the most gifted imaginations of the ancients were able to draw dream pictures of human travel above the horizons. The Wright brothers flew the first plane 38 years ago. So, the demonstration period of aviation has been 38 years against thousands of years of fact, instinct and tradition that man could not rise above the water or land on anything approaching the design of a bird's wings. There have been only a few thousand true apostles of the coming air age in a present-day world population of billions. The acceptance of aviation has been painfully slow, say {ome of these few, real air apostles. This is the basic reason why those men charged with the preservation of the British Empire, the world position and safety of the United States, and the winning of this war, couldn’t cut loose from the old system.

Approaching a Showdown

SOME DAY school children will be reading the history of the age in which we are now living. They will be questioned as to the facts of Pearl Harbor and of this war—facts of which we read as current events.

It was no great task of vision to estimate that air- | planes could destroy cities and armies and sink | Such potentialities were clearly demon- | strated more than 20 years ago. Ail we have in | this war today are more of the same basic type |

warships.

bombers, fighters and flving boats.

Present planes do indeed have superior perform- |

ance and flight ranges, neither of which was unforeBombs sunk warships 20 years ago. Warships were built to withstand the bombs that sank those old warships, and modern bombers merely hoisted

bigger bombs under their wings and did the same | job over again. But we failed to produce the lead- | ers, the men who had the power—financial and | political —to see this picture and understand that |

such things were going to happen. Victory in this war will belong to the strongest, the swiftest, and the most wings. Destiny is now about to call for a showdown of cards.

So They Say—

None of the victories of the Axis could have been gained without this silent but very active partner— from the Battle of Poland to Pearl Harbor. His name is complacency. — Jim Farley, former Postmaster General. - * * There is but one business in America today. That is winning the war. There will be but one business

when the fighting is over. That will be to win the | peace. —Joséph Daniels, First World War Secretary |

of the Navy.

No Filipino of any

Baal 4 di

-

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

BUY BONDS, NOT LIQUOR, SHE URGES By Mrs. Willard G. Gray, 302 N. State St. “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” How many of us have heard this ditty from our elders? Now we have a new time called “War Time,” and the purpose is to conserve electricity. If we really are trying to save electricity, why are the saloons, inns, taverns, etc. allowed to have their high-powered electric signs outside and inside, also their high-powered electric music boxes blaring out? Liquor takes sugar, grain and many things useful to the housewife. We are being rationed on sugar, automobiles, tires, lumber and material for building, plumbing and heating fixtures, woolens, silk hose, and all silk and woolen material, all kinds of paper. I fold my paper sacks and either return them to the grocer or to my egg man. Real Americans are ready and willing to make sacrifices for the winning of the war, but why has there not been any restrictions placed on the sale of liquor? ... If we really want to economize instead of spending money for liquor which only makes misery, want and

inefficiency, we will spend all our agreed that America will not only

extra money for defense bonds or stamps which will help our country, our homes and our families. . . . = = =

SEE RUM AND PENSIONS AS ISSUES

By Guy D. Sallee, 5801 Woodside Dr. Our Congress is supposed to represent the people, but let’s investigate what they have done to us. They placed a service tax on the family fishing car, and then refused us tires. Then in order to conserve sugar, they reduced the size of the all-day sucker, and the penny striped stick of candy, and placed a sugar tax with a limited supply on the family sugar bowl, of course the old boys don’t call this a baby tax, but ask the average American boy or girl what he calls it. Simultaneously, the Interior Department announced through Honest Harold that rum makers who used cane molasses may continue to process this rum drink. Kindhearted Uncle Sam has several such plants in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

It will be interesting to know how

(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conMake

your letters short, so all can

to express views in

excluded.

troversies

have a chance. Letters must

be signed.)

many Congressmen must have their daily portions of this imported rum in order to do his faithful chores for the people... . If retirement pensions should become a fact, the paramount issue in the spring primary should be Rum and Pensions for Congressmen vs. Taxing the American Sugar Bowl and Family Car... .

» 4 ” SAYS WILLKIE WAS MISQUOTED By H. M. B., Indianapolis | An answer to one of Mr. Wendell | Willkie’s critics who made a state-

ment in your paper a few weeks ago, quoting Mr. Willkie on the night of the Louis-Baer fight of

Jan. 9 as follows: “We are now win this war, | world.” But I didn’t understand Mr. Willkie saying those words. This is jwhat he said: “America is not only |in the war—but in it to win for democracy which shall rule the world” —meaning the democracy shall rule [the world. So it isn’t Mr. Wendell Willkie who has made another blunder and a fumbling—but one of Mr. Willkie’s critics. ® o 2 PENSIONS, CRITICISM AND CONGRESSMEN By Charles F. Martin, 126 8S. Minneapolis The honesty and sincerity of our Representatives in Congress, regarding the question of adequate old-age pensions, has finally been officially established. Their record now speaks for itself. These Congressmen, who for years have made such convincing and sympathetic promises to the voters about “reasonable” old-age pension, have just enacted a retirement pension law with a maximum amount of $4175 a year ($348 per month), payable only to themselves. These patriotic

but will rule the

12th St,

gentlemen could find ample time—

Side Glances=By Galbraith

war or no war—to consider and pass this special pension legislation for their own personal benefit. They didn’t even need a “recommendation” from the President for such action. However, the voters back home are now demanding to know why these Congressmen didn’t pass the Townsend Plan Bill and then accept their pensions, along with some 10,000,000 other patriotic American citizens, from this law. Why continue this special granting of exorbitant pensions to those who have always received the largest public salaries? If the Townsend pensions are insufficient for retired Congressmen to exist upon, then why don’t they purchase additional annuities from private insurance companies and pay for them out of their $10,000 a year salaries?

EJ EJ 2 WHO PRODUCES AND WHO SHOULD PROFIT? By H. W. Daacke, 736 S. Noble St.

{

| figures, but where does he Kkeep|

them when he is challenged to sup‘port them? After numerous efforts | to get him to do so, all of them endling in failure, I made this query of | “Labor getting all?” to draw him | out, but he was too wily, and instead a supporter, under the nom de plume of a “Voice in the Crowd” comes into the breach with the mild suggestion that I think, without using tie word or its meaning in his own statements. Since when are the higher professions classed as non-producers?

One more question, and the an-

pertinent question of who produces and consumes the national income and therefore is entitled to all of it. How many new millionaires (World War No. 1—32,000)0 would this era produce? And how many real nonproducers would continue to exist and draw salaries or dividends, if labor, all labor both mental and physical, would quit flat?

2 2 » URGES CHECK OF CONGRESSMEN’S RECORDS

By W. E. Leslie, 3924 Carson Ave. I wonder if President Roosevelt thinks the American voters are foolish enough to return these same Congressmen to Congress even if we take the chance of some new members opposing the present Administration. . . Let the voters check closely every member who voted for this bill and replace him with a new member who has the country at heart more than thinking of their own selfish interest. . . . & 9» “NAME THAT CAMP FOR WENDELL WILLKIE” By Alda Goar, 1329 Eugene St. My ideal of a name for the Army camp at Columbus, Ind., is Wendell L. Willkie. He did more for our country in 1940 campaigning than any other man in the United States. ... a real man in the United States. . . . A real Hoosier every Hoosier ought to be proud of. . . Honor the living and let the dead rest.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG

I was a dog of Gettysburg. I trotted near the train And nosed among the officers who kicked me to my pain. A man came by...I could not see. I howled. The light was dim, But when I brushed against his legs, I liked the smell of him. —MacKinlay Kantor (1904- )

DAILY THOUGHT

Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him.—Deuteronomy 4:35.

FORGETFUL youth! but now, the Power above with ease can save

each object of his love; wide as his boundless

Why, most assuredly, the gentle-| man from Attica has the facts and!

swer to it will definitely solve the:

Gen. Johnson Says—

WASHINGTON, Feb, 12, — ] have just been talking to a man who has seen the most recent figures on war production. He ig a man who knows exactly what such figures mean. The trouble with the average lay-reporter writing on production reports- is that he doesn’t. His news is like a report that 10,000 head of stock have been sent tc market and doesn’t tell the farmer whether they are cows, steers, calves, sheep or porkers, fat, lean, prime or worthless. And it has just about as much value. We have been fooled often by this kind of stuff. But my friend is as near expert on war production as any one we have. He had no more intention of making these confidential figures public than I have but the important point in mentioning them is that for the first time since we began to produce at all this hitherto pessimistic critic finds himself surprised with optimism. The progress is really astonishing. It is not only the figures themselves, but the fact that, applying the rate of improvement they show, to the actual rate of production, some of the most optimistic guesses—even of . the President himself—which a few weeks age seemed unbelievable—now appear attainable.

Trend All to the Good

THIS DOES NOT mean that the record is uni: formly satisfactory. There are still uncured lags among some of the most sorely needed items. But they stand out like sore thumbs where attention can be concentrated on them and in the typical American system "of bringing all the elements of a mass-produced article to the assembly line in an even rate of flow, we | have a right to expect increased speed where it is | most necessary. : . The most encouraging aspects of this picture arg not the number of lethal weapons actually being turned out weekly—heart-warming as that is. It is first, that the rate of flow is uniform and uniformly increasing. It is, second, and more important, thai the great batteries of massive machines are there in place, operating at their steady, condensed, co-ordi-nated, rate of speed and with ample room in mos{ cases, for a very large expansion of both number and speed—which means that we could be more generous still in estimating the future. It is not an exaggeration to call it a modern industrial miracle. No such record in retooling, much less in converting plants to the production of a completely new article, exists in ours or any other industrial history.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

TO MY MIND, having had several years of ex-

able thing has been the training of raw manpower material to do these jobs as mechanics. It has been a new and specialized system invented for this work alone and accomplished with a remarkable degree of intelligence and success. A curious question of credit will arise here. The new flood of war production comes in with Donald Nelson, as Gen. Knudsen goes out. Surely Mr. Nelson did not do it. The bare outlines of his organization have not even yet formed. Mr. Knudsen didn't da much of it. He was too busy with other things. How about giving a little credit to the resiliency, patriotism and ingenuity of our old and much maligned kicking-boy—American industry—and plans and production policies of the Army and Navy which, after all, has done the job to date, '

The views expressed by columnists in this

Editor's Note: They are not necessarily those

newspaper are their own. of The Indianapolis Times,

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

HENRIETTA E. DAVIS, director of the Nurses’ School at Abbott Hospital in Minneapolis, is the right person in the right place. You can tell that at first glance. She has the light-hearted look which shines only upon the faces of those who love their work. “Unless she really likes her job, no nurse could stick it,” is the way she put it during our chat. After you've loafed around a hospital, watching the women who live there, you are willing to accept the statement as true. For nursing may be romantic and all that, but it is certainly no snap. Yet right now America needs nurses, and needs them desperately. This doesn’t mean, however, that anybody and everybody will be acceptable. For Red Cross nursing corps, for courses in practical home training, and for aide jobs in hospitals—yes. Thousands of girls and women can help on the sidelines. But for the trained professional, only the best is good enough. Applicants for training must be young, preferably between 18 and 35; they must be competent and stable, with vision, initiative and the ability to adjust themselves to all sorts of changes of environment. Good health, good character, an even temperament and a pleasant personality are also required.

Against Lowering Standards

AND THAT, GIRLS, is a large order. So large, in fact, that every effort is made by the supervisor to select only those best fitted to carry on and stick to the job. . Certain schools of nursing require some college training but many accept girls with high school diplomas, provided their grades are above average. Miss Davis feels that she voices the. opinion of all members of her profession in opposing any lowering of nursing standards at this time. We can easily understand and respect their attitude, I think, because a very great danger to national health would exist if, after the war emergency, the country were filled with half-trained and incompetent nurses.

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive research. Write your question clearly, sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau. 1013 Thirteenth St.. Washington. D. C.)

Q-—Did Abraham Lincoln ever make a statement about labor strikes? A—In a speech delivered in New Haven, Conn, March 6, 1860, President Lincoln made the following statement: “I am glad to see that a system prevails in New England under which laborers can strike if they want to.”

Q—If a stone is dropped over the edge of a tall shaft, will it strike a point at the bottom directly bes low the point of release?

A—The earth is rotating from west to east and a point farther from the earth’s center travels more rapidly in space toward the east than one nearer the center. Therefore, a stone held over the edge of a tall shaft has a greater eastward velocity in space due to the earth’s rotation than a point at the bottom of the shaft and, when released, the stone will maintain this velocity throughout its fall. Therefore, the stone finally lands at a point to the east of the

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perience in industrial management, the most remark. «

point at the bottom of the shaft directly below the

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